Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Be Still

Stripped down, wrapped in warm blankets, and encased in strange foam to hold me in place, I enter the dark tunnel.

The MRI, I'm told by a technician who smiles kindly, will take one hour.

One hour? What will I do for one hour inside that machine? And I just finished two cups of coffee! "You're kidding, right?" I say and give the technician a wide smile. "I thought this thing takes a couple of minutes. And it's just this little finger," I remind him and wiggle it in front of him.

"No. It takes an hour," he confirms.

I think of what I could accomplish in one hour. What a waste!

They put earphones on my head to pipe in music of my choice, but the channel turns to static (just my luck!). The machine growls and grunts at 2 minute intervals, and I feel like I'm being launched into space.

When I tell my body to stay still, it responds with twitches. When I tell my hand to just calm down, it won't.

The command to be still challenges me to the very ligaments and tendons of my being.

Finally, I relax. Without distraction, I visualize each member of my family and pray for them by name. I pray for my neighbors. I pray for myself. I start worshiping God in this bizarre place. Suddenly, I'm having the kind of conversation with God I've been longing for, and it took me being practically mummified to hold me still long enough to face him.

An hour passes, and they come and pull me out, unwrap me, and release me back to my life. Within minutes, I'm driving in traffic I can hardly navigate. It's all frenzy and lights: cell phone ringing, clocks flashing, and bodies moving. I can't think straight.

All I want to do is go home to my bed, wrap myself in blankets, and get back to that space where I learned to be still.

6 comments:

Great post. This is why I occasionally find an odd sense of pleasure in sickness (bizarre as it sounds) becasue it forces me to slow down and be still. A vacation would be better of course, but a girl takes what she can get. ;)

Your flair-chronicling has almost reached a full year. I'm eager for the 365th post, Heather!

Thanks, Heather. The Lord and I keep talking about being still, staying focused. I used to be so focused, but it seems to have disappeared. So now I know the secret--get an MRI. Or, as I'm seeking to do, make REST my word for the year and my focus for Lent.

Heather, I had a similar experience in an MRI tube years ago. I came prepared to listen to music, but the music didn't work...so all I had left to do was talk with God. And He met me there, in the MRI tube, in a remarkable way. I felt so LOVED by Him. Just loved. It filled me up and was like balm to every hurt spot in me, body and soul. He loves me. And that is enough.

About Me

In my writing classes, we talk about writing with flair, but lately I've been interested in what it means to live with flair. Can I find a way to make every day impressive and meaningful? Just as a sentence turns into something beautiful with the right verb and punctuation, can I learn to revise my day and punctuate it with flair?

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I'm a wife and mother of two who teaches college writing. I love writing novels, encouraging teachers, reflecting on spiritual principles in everyday life, drinking tea out of my little blue teapot, petting my cats, exercising, lighting candles, reading grammar books, watching movies and any television show with singing and dancing in it, entertaining, eating leftover Chinese food, and blogging. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.